Suggestions for Improving Ease of Use

[Grand Maester]

I have three suggestions for improving ease of use of the powerboard platform.

1. Only show functions that the particular user has access to: While I think pretty much all features are available to all members here, on other forums using IPB, some of them aren't accessible by all members. However when this is the case it's not always clear because all the functions are listed in the control panel even if a user doesn't have access to them and because there is often no message indicating to the user that he or she doesn't have access to a particular feature, instead it usually just shows a blank screen. This can be confusing because the user may not know whether they are experiencing a technical problem, don't have access, or has one of any number of other issues. IPB should make it so that a user can only see those functions that he or she has access to.

2. Display search terms at the top of each page of search results: On most search engines, each page of search results also displays the terms used, IPB's search function doesn't, this may seem trivial, but I've found that when you are searching and have to refine your search it's very helpful to have the terms you've already used shown so that you don't end up searching for the same thing multiple times without realizing it. Right now the only way to find out is to hit the back button.

3. Make the forum name headers in the topic subscription lists hyperlink to their respective forums: This is certainly not an obvious thing to do but you'd be surprised how often this could be useful.

[Jυra]

IPB3 highlights searched words in the results.

?

[Grand Maester]

IPB3 highlights searched words in the results.

?

I wasn't aware of that, but even if that's true, that's not the same thing as showing them all at the top. Highlighting shows only those that actually appear in a given hit.

[bfarber]

I have three suggestions for improving ease of use of the powerboard platform.

1. [b]Only show functions that the particular user has access to:[/b] While I think pretty much all features are available to all members here, on other forums using IPB, some of them aren't accessible by all members. However when this is the case it's not always clear because all the functions are listed in the control panel even if a user doesn't have access to them and because there is often no message indicating to the user that he or she doesn't have access to a particular feature, instead it usually just shows a blank screen. This can be confusing because the user may not know whether they are experiencing a technical problem, don't have access, or has one of any number of other issues. IPB should make it so that a user can only see those functions that he or she has access to.

2. [b]Display search terms at the top of each page of search results:[/b] On most search engines, each page of search results also displays the terms used, IPB's search function doesn't, this may seem trivial, but I've found that when you are searching and have to refine your search it's very helpful to have the terms you've already used shown so that you don't end up searching for the same thing multiple times without realizing it. Right now the only way to find out is to hit the back button.

3. [b]Make the forum name headers in the topic subscription lists hyperlink to their respective forums:[/b] This is certainly not an obvious thing to do but you'd be surprised how often this could be useful.

#2 and #3 are done in IPB3.

#1 is mostly done - any areas that are still showing but they can't access you'd need to point out after it's release. :)